The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) was founded in 2005 by eben-moglen to provide legal services to free software projects and organizations. It is the primary legal infrastructure organization for the free software movement, distinct from the free-software-foundation's advocacy role.
The SFLC was established to provide pro bono legal representation to developers and organizations whose work depends on copyleft licenses, particularly gpl-v2 and gpl-v3. It has brought enforcement actions against companies violating the gpl-copyleft-mechanism and has advised on license compliance.
stallman and the free-software-foundation supported the SFLC's founding as a way to institutionalize legal capacity for the movement. Moglen's work on gpl-v3 — addressing tivoization, digital-restrictions-management, and the saas-loophole — was conducted in close collaboration with Stallman through the SFLC.
bradley-kuhn worked at the SFLC before co-founding the software-freedom-conservancy in 2006 as a separate organization focused on fiscal sponsorship and GPL enforcement. The two organizations have sometimes operated in parallel, sometimes with tension over enforcement strategy.
The SFLC's work represents the operationalization of the legal framework Stallman created: the four-freedoms are not merely philosophical commitments but legally enforceable rights under gpl-v1, gpl-v2, and gpl-v3, and the SFLC exists to enforce them.